David Horowitz at ‘Securing America’s Future’ in Beverly Hills

This essay is cross-posted, with additional pictures, at American Power.

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The event, sponsored by the Jewish Policy Center, was held at Saban Theatre on Wilshire.

The event press release is here. Michael Medved moderated. And the panel was awesome: Cliff May, Mona Charen, and David Horowitz.

Medved’s opening question asked the panelists: “What was the most important threat” facing country today?” Medved tapped David Horowitz first. Without hesitation, Horowitz said that “Islamo-Nazism” was the most important threat facing the United States. And he noted that it wasn’t just the threat of Islamist terrorism but the even greater danger of the “fifth column of the international left” (hellbent on America’s destruction). Mona Charen followed Horowitz. And she agreed, although she stressed that the Western European democracies have suffered from a loss of self-confidence. They have turned inward and are ready to submit to creeping Islamization. This hollowing out indicates Europe’s long abandonment from the defense of Western civilization. Charen added that in the American case, the party in power (the Obama/Dems) was working on the Europeanization of the United States. But she stressed that the American people have refused to capitulate to the left’s statist power grab. The U.S. continues as the bastion for the defense of the West. And the coming election in November was looking to bring about a major reckoning in American politics. Last to respond was Cliff May. He agreed with the others but placed the debate on security in the context of America’s support for Israel and our leadership in the war on terror. “Israel is on the front lines,” May said. The security of Israel directly affects the security of the United States.

As this was a bit uniform, Michael Medved broke out of the moderator’s role to suggest that the “bankruptcy” of America’s fiscal policy was perhaps the greatest threat to America’s long-term security. “This will destroy the American dream,” he said. Cliff May and Mona Charen seemed fairly warm to that discussion, but David Horowitz placed the current huge budget deficits in historical context, suggesting that as a percentage of GDP the deficits America incurred in WWII were much larger than today’s, and after the war we paid them down and went about building the postwar prosperity. “The deficits are a problem of political will” not economic crisis, he said. Horowitz was to return to the theme of political willpower throughout the night.